DBZ: Burst Limited

I picked up Dragonball Z: Burst Limit ages ago and was going to write a moderately positive review. I kept putting it off, and now I understand why: it’s just not that good. After giving it about 4 hours, I put the disc back in its box and moved on. I didn’t really play anything until Soul Calibur 4 came out. And that’s the true measure of how good a game is, isn’t it? After your excitement about the shiny new toy wears off, are you still playing with it?

So, what’s wrong? Nothing specifically: there’s just not enough of anything.

Let’s get the good stuff out of the way so I can pound in the mediocrity: the visuals are amazing. The use of cel-shading really hides the polygonal nature of the game and engages the player like no game in the DBZ franchise has before. It is exactly like directing a fight out of the cartoon, and that is awesome. For no other reason alone did I buy this game. If you’re a fan of DBZ, or even of fighting anime in general, then this game will satisfy the need to interact directly with the animation.

And upping your power level to go Super Saiyan or Kaio Ken in the middle of a battle looks awesome.

DBZBL is a fighting game, and as such you can expect the gameplay to be a bit repetitious. These are games where button-mashers tend to excel, and this Burst Limit is no exception. The basic concepts are easy to grasp, the intermediate stuff tends to go off without a hitch, and the advanced stuff… well, I haven’t been able to find any. Each character plays the same, and though the animations may be slightly different, the moves have the same effects. In some cases, the variation in height of a character may present a bit of a challenge, but that has nothing to do with the moves.

There is an attempt to add depth to the gameplay with “Drama Pieces”. These are in-game scenes which are activated by certain conditions specific to the Piece. When the conditions are met, they provide a benefit to health, power, third party attack on your enemy, and so on. Unfortunately, it’s hard to keep track of what’s what, and nigh impossible to anticipate that fight will lean in a particular direction, so I’ve generally found them to be a waste of time.

Speaking of the character roster, there isn’t much to get excited about there. Because the singleplayer campaign covers only up to the Cell Saga, the roster is relatively limited. If you were hoping to play as Goten, any of the Fusion characters, or Majin Buu then you’re up for disappointment. There are a few characters from the movie-length spinoff episodes like Bardok and Broli, but overall it’s a disappointing character list that’s compounded by lack of variation in the move set.

As mentioned, the singleplayer campaign is pretty short. It covers several seasons of the cartoon, but loses a lot of the context that glues the individual fights together. When you complete a chapter, credits roll with a montage of scenes from the episode. Most of them are rehashed from the anime in the game’s graphics engine, but don’t actually appear as cutscenes between battles. That would have made the campaign a lot more engaging, especially for people new to the Dragonball franchise.

There’s also the regular gamut of arcade, time trial and survival modes, none of which are anything special. I played a bit on Xbox Live and found it pretty boring. Internet lag is a strong barrier to enjoyment of a game that relies on specially timed button presses, and the game doesn’t seem to present any ways to filter potential matches.

Overall, I had some quick fun with this one, but not enough to still be playing weeks later.